Temptations name is Temperance
by Vampire121208
Summary: The Jeff. Fundraisers theme this year hits Booth with memories he doesn't care to relive and Brennan with feelings she has hidden for a long time.


"Shit." Was all he mumbled, and part of her questioned is she had even heard that. Booth and Brennan were sitting beside one another in the Tahoe, Booth steering while Brennan stared, eyes distant, out the window.

"I said we didn't have to go if you weren't comfortable with it." She said simply, this time returning her eyes from the passing scenery of downtown Washington D.C. to the smooth face of her partner.

He didn't respond. Too many things were racing through his head. Her shirt that day was tighter than usual, he had noted immediately upon picking her up that morning. Her hair was down, relaxed and loose around her shoulders. She had applied very little makeup, and Booth liked it that way. She looked more natural, and if at all possible, more beautiful. But he wasn't thinking only about those things, the usual things, right at the moment. He was thinking about the invitation she had shown him, after withdrawing it from her worn leather shoulder bag. He was thinking about the black and white scrolling print on the page, the gold letters with his and her names next to one another. The tacky ornamentation that just screamed a bored intern had dreamt it up.

The Annual Jeffersonian Fundraiser.

He knew she hated it, knew that she would still go. Knew that she saw it as part of her responsibility to go along with the "anthropological practice of requesting economical security for the Jeffersonian".

The car was silent as he thought, sometimes fidgeting with the temperature or maybe rolling his wind down so he could feel the semblance of a breeze, hoping it would clear his head. Blowing out the cob webs that had begun to grow over his memories of the days after he got back from the Rangers, the days where he would spend sun up to sun down in the stinky and stale air of the Casino floor. How good it had felt with the dice in his hands, the money flying from his pocket and mind, as if holding hands.

She waited. She was good at waiting. Steadily and calmly, she had placed the invitation back into her bag as she saw his eyes widen reading it. She instructed him to drive, and guiltily she regretted even bringing it up. She should have just told him that she didn't want to go this year. She could do that. She had gone every year for the many she had worked as lead Forensic Anthropologist at the Museum. But she didn't. She knew she had to tell him, share with him. So she had slipped the gilded paper into her purse and as she locked her apartment door she had known it would be difficult for him. She had expected him to tense, for there to be an awkward moment or two, but she had not anticipated that thickening silence that was swallowing her in the car.

She had even given him an out of the evening, all be it, later and less well calculated than she would have liked. But the look in his eyes and told her that she needed to give him a release. Working with him for so long at taught her little traits about his body and voice. Little triggers. And she had known as soon as she had opened the envelope, that this was big trigger.

A dangerous one.

So in the silence of the car, the occasional sound of Booth's automatic window rolling up or down, Brennan didn't bring it up again. She didn't bring up how well he had handled their last trip to Vegas, of course they were undercover for the last part but that didn't matter. She had seen the twitching of his hands on the Casino floor, noticed the glassiness of his eyes at the Craps. But she didn't need to see any of this in his face on this particular morning.

She had faith in him, faith that he was stronger than he ever could imagine himself to be. But this wasn't something she felt she could decide for him. She knew his answer would be yes, that he would smile willingly as they climbed from the truck onto the street of the Diner. She could already feel his hand at its place in the center of her back; imagine the pleasurable burning it left there for her, long after she was situated at her own work station at the Jeffersonian.

Instead, as they spent the time in the thick silence she focused not on the struggling man beside her, but instead on the invitation. She could see it in her mind's eye.

She could see the dice that decorated the border and the tacky champagne glasses which the date and time were printed inside of, looking like cheap bubbles. She could see the playing cards that she and Booth's golden names were printed on.

It was all too tacky. Nothing was done artistically at all. She was sure when she got to work that Angela would be infused with distaste and annoyance that no one had consulted her.

Suddenly Brennan looked up and they were parked outside the Diner. She felt Booth leave the car, without her having to look, and knew just when he would open the door. She heard him sigh and say "You know Bones…I think we both need a Night in Vegas."

"I think we do, Booth. I think we do."

A/U: Well? Please review!


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